Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

The Australian Mining Journal noted
that FoE played a ‘leading role’ in
these blockades. Through this time,
the Campaign Against Nuclear Energy
(CANE), originally set up by FoE and
others in 1975, played a pivotal role in
organising opposition to uranium mining in
South Australia (SA). It wound up in 1987
after 12 years of existence and creative
resistance. Indigenous land rights and
impacts on groundwater from WMC’s
Olympic Dam mine have been continual
and unresolved issues since the mine was
opened. There were suggestions of ‘back
door deals’ being done between the mine
proponent, WMC (formerly Western Mining
Corporation) and selected Aboriginal
groups.
In 1984, the SA Government awarded the
operators of Roxby Downs a special water
licence that allowed the mine to extract up
to 33 million litres of water a day from the
Great Artesian Basin (GAB). Even at lower
actual use rates, critics maintain this has
been causing ‘irreversible degradation’ of
the Mound Springs, a complex of unique
arid zone wetlands created where the GAB
comes to the surface near Marree in SA,
and a general reduction in water pressure
across the Basin.
In the Wimmera region of western Victoria,
a subsidiary of CRA gained approval
to begin the ‘demonstration’ phase of a
major mineral sands mining project. This
could have led to commercial operations
covering more than 40,000 hectares of
land, with huge impacts on land and both
surface and ground water systems. FoEM
worked with a broad coalition of antinuclear
and environmental organisations
and farmers groups to defeat the larger
proposal.
In 1983, plans were also floated for leach
mining of gold in Victoria. CRA and other
mining companies were hoping to extract
gold in ‘deep leads’ – underground ancient
river beds, by dissolving the gold with
chemicals, then pumping the slurry to the
surface for processing. FoEM worked with
the Aboriginal Mining Information Centre
as part of a successful campaign to stop
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The first blockades at Roxby Downs SA,
1983.
this destructive form of mining.
In 1984, the ALP government in Victoria,
under the leadership of John Cain,
signed a joint venture agreement with the
multinational Alcoa over plans to build an
aluminium smelter at Portland in the far
west of the state. A site at Point Danger
was selected on a section of coastal
heathland and adjacent to the town itself.
This area was of significance to the
local traditional owners, the Gournditch-
Jmara people. There was an occupation
of the site from September 1980 and a
successful High Court challenge, but sadly
the site was bulldozed, Aboriginal artefacts
were destroyed and the smelter was
subsequently built.
Over this period, FoEM played a key
role in a major community campaign that
focussed on the impacts of lead petrol on
children’s health and mental development.
This resulted in petrol with a decreased
lead content being introduced in Victoria
in 1983. At the same time, the Hazardous
Chemicals Collective, influenced by
a number of people including Clare
Henderson, Clive Rosewarne and Paul
Di Masi, campaigned on issues including
the bulk chemical facility located at Coode
Island in Melbourne’s inner west and
undertook ground breaking work on the
threats posed by dioxins.
Issues of gender and sexism remained a
constant theme within FoE in the 1980s.
Chain Reaction acted as an important
FoE 30 Years 35